Upcycling of PET plastics into diethyl terephthalate for applications as phase change materials in energy harvesting

Upcycling of PET plastics into diethyl terephthalate for applications as phase change materials in energy harvesting

Journal of Energy Storage

10.1016/j.est.2023.109084

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2023.109084

Johnathan Joo Cheng Lee, Nur Nawwarah Ainul Hayat, Xiang Yun Debbie Soo, Sze Yu Tan, Yu Yu Koh Hnin, Suxi Wang, Fengxia Wei, Dai Kai, Fuke Wang, Ping Luo, Jianwei Xu, Xian Jun Loh, Qiang Zhu

05 October 2023

Lee, J. J. C., Hayat, N. N. A., Soo, X. Y. D., Tan, S. Y., Hnin, Y. Y. K., Wang, S., Wei, F., Kai, D., Wang, F., Luo, P., Xu, J., Loh, X. J., & Zhu, Q. (2023). Upcycling of PET plastics into diethyl terephthalate for applications as phase change materials in energy harvesting. Journal of Energy Storage, 73, 109084. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2023.109084

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is an indispensable material in our everyday lives and upcycling of its waste has become a major area of research. Herein, the upcycling of PET waste into phase change materials (PCM) for thermal energy storage applications is presented. Hydrolysed and esterified PET waste affords diethyl terephthalate (DET), which when blended with UV-curing acrylic matrix, trimethylolpropane ethoxy triacrylate (TMPEOTA), forms a composite PCM. Chemical characterisation such as IR and NMR were conducted to confirm the presence of functional groups in the composites. The thermal properties of the composites, such as melting point and thermal degradation were obtained and DET exhibited a relatively high melting enthalpy of 94.1 J/g at about 39.9 ◦C. The form stability and thermal performance was studied for composites made of different DET loading weight percentages from 50 to 90 %. A loading rate of 80 % (D80) was found to provide best latent heat capacity while maintaining its form stability and minimizing leakage. Finally, to assess the performance of D80 as a thermal storage material, a thermal response test was performed and D80 was able to prevent significant rise in temperature for about 60s during its phase transition as opposed to TMPEOTA control.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This research / project is supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research - Structural Metal Alloy Program (SMAP)
Grant Reference no. : A18B1b0061

https://oar.a-star.edu.sg/communities-collections/articles/20866

2352-152X

Institute of Materials Research and Engineering